Gratitude
by FitchSwitch
Summary: Franky reflects on the appropriate feelings one should be feeling towards one's best friend.


**A/n: Sooooooo. I know its not what you want but while I'm _working _on what you want I wrote this. I couldn't help it, okay? The new generation, while not usurping Gen 2 as the greatest people of all time, is fabulous. And Franky was eating at my brain. Also yes, I'm a Frace shipper (well, I'm more of a Franky/Happiness shipper who happens to believe that that happiness lies with Grace) don't judge me. Un-beta'd as always. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Skins, but I'm grateful for it.

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Franky Fitzgerald could not afford to be any more different than she already was. She was well aware of the flaws that people like Mini McGuiness had been pointing out for years: her clothes were too weird, her Dads were too weird, and her art was too weird. Her hair was too short. Her braces sometimes got in the way when she spoke. She was too shy, too awkward, and too small for her age. Most guys wound up thinking she was too strange and, like she'd told Rich and Alo, her only experience with other girls involved being beaten up by them. At this point in her life even one more slight difference from the rest of the world was one too many.

So that's why, sitting on her windowsill and watching the rain pour down outside while the boys slept in a pile on her floor and Grace lay curled up in a little ball on her bed (all of them having kipped out after the black-haired girl made them sit down and watch _The Princess Bride_ with her: Rich with gratuitous eyerolling and comments whenever he thought something was stupid, Alo with less eyerolling but more comments about Buttercup's shaggability, and Franky herself with the gentle good humor she always applied to Grace's ideas), she firmly decided that she should only feel gratitude with Grace.

That was fine; gratitude was good. She _should _feel grateful to have a friend like Gracie. It was all right to feel happy when Grace did things like showing up in her house to apologize for certain people acting like twats and when she did things like following her out of Mini's party. It was all right to think that Grace was sweet and funny and smart and maybe a little naïve, because she _was _all of those things. It was all right to know when she had dance practice and go watch, because she felt like a good friend when Grace looked so happy when Franky burst into applause after she'd finished. It was all right to feel irritated when Grace would sometimes come over upset because Mini said or did something nonchalantly cruel again. It was fine to want to punch Mini in the face when that happened because, let's be honest, a lot of people wanted to punch Mini in the face most of the time anyway.

It was _not _all right to be unable to control the stupid smile on her face when Grace pulled her into a dance in the middle of a mall just because the ballerina wanted to. _Dance, Franky, come on!_ It was not all right to feel completely gutted because she thought Mini and Liv and _Grace _had betrayed her. The relief she felt when she found out it was all the blonde girl's idea should not have made her so dizzy she had to sit down. It was not all right to be unable to control the sheer joy and the pounding of her heart when they all giggled and laughed and splashed around in the pool.

It was all right to watch her dance rehearsals but it was not all right to watch her dance simply to enjoy the feelings swirl around in her head at the way Grace's body would twist and spin and flow effortlessly to the music. It was not all right to think that Grace looked adorable whenever she did the little curtsy she always did at the end of each practice. It was not all right to feel a strange happy flip in her stomach whenever Grace would spot her across a room and smile and wave. It was not all right to feel like bursting into tears when Grace crossed her arms and stomped her foot and angrily told her that if she heard Franky insult herself one more time she would, _I swear to Jane Austen not talk to you for a whole day or something. _

It was not all right to feel giddy whenever Grace casually mentioned she actually rather liked the way Franky's braces made her have to sound out words a different way. It was not all right for her stomach to erupt in butterflies when Grace would every so often reach over and smooth short tufts of hair that would sometimes move out of place after gym class. It was fine to feel irritated with Mini but it was not all right to feel **so** goddamn angry.

Actually, that was all right too. Friends did that. Although she wasn't sure that friends felt the same hard protective ball in their stomachs that she did when Alo pointed out that he could see Grace's privates through her leotard. It surprised her, how quickly she reacted to Grace's embarrassment by turning around and jabbing him in the stomach. And if she hit him a little harder than she initially meant to, well, he was being a twat and no one should talk about Grace like that. He could take his complaints when he showed up for the movie about the Franky's-elbow-shaped bruise that was currently forming on his abs and shove them somewhere where the sun doesn't shine.

And for the record she would have hit Liv too if she hadn't already been engaged in a verbal sparring match with Mini, and if the action wouldn't have resulted in her immediate and messy death.

Grace mumbled in her sleep and shifted over, her arm reaching out to grab at one of Franky's pillows and cuddle into it, and Franky shook herself out of the scene earlier that day and put such an abrupt stop to her train of thought that it should have left skid marks on her brain.

This difference, whatever it was, would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Everything else about herself she could change. The braces would come off eventually, she could wear different clothes if she wanted to (she _didn't _want to, but the option was always there). She could change the way she walked and the way she talked and the way she acted and eventually people would accept her. But something like this, she couldn't change. Something like this would break her.

Gratitude. She was grateful for her friendship and her smiles and how sometimes if she was having a shit time at school all it took was Grace showing up with a random story about a dream she had last night, or looking for her on the green at lunch instead of heading straight to eat with Liv and Mini, or subtly moving to guard her back and supportively link arms in the hall, to make the day turn around again.

Franky was grateful for a lot of things about Gracie. But right at that moment she was mostly grateful the other girl couldn't read minds.

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**A/n: I'm throwing around the idea of doing a companion piece for this from Grace's POV. Thoughts? There's a little review button around here somewhere where you can leave your answer...**

**Cheers! ~FS**


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